“Then, if neither of you are hurt, I’m glad the suspense is over,” declared Mrs. Lane, with surprising energy. “I knew it had to come, only I was sure it would be where there was a clear drop of half a mile! Now it’s happened, and we’re all alive!”
“I like your philosophy,” said her husband. “It doesn’t deal with the problem of how we’re to get out of this outlandish place, with a damaged car, I suppose?” He was removing her shoe and stocking with deft fingers as he spoke. “Only a bad sprain—poor little woman! Are you perfectly certain you are not hiding anything else?”
“Not a thing,” she assured him, hastily. “I’m scratched, of course, but who wouldn’t be? bracken is such scratchy stuff. Just fancy, if there had been a log in it, what a bump I would have come! And how is the poor car?”
“I’ll look presently. Barry, get the table-napkins out of the lunch-baskets and climb down to the creek—soak them well, and bring them back as quickly as you can. That’s the best we can do for the ankle until we can find a house.”
Barry dived at the car and in a moment was plunging down the hillside. Dr. Lane took out a pocket-flask.
“Drink this,” he said, giving her the little silver cup. “No, I don’t care if you don’t want it—you’re to have it, Milly. There’s a certain amount of shock about a tumble like this, even if we do happen to be all alive. I’m going to have a drink myself. Now I’ll make you a bit more comfortable.” He salvaged a rug from the car, folded it, and arranged it so that she could sit on it, leaning back against a tree: and lifting her as if she were a child, placed her upon it, with a cushion behind her and another supporting the injured foot. Barry returned, panting, with a handful of dripping table-napkins, with which his father bandaged the ankle scientifically.
“That’s ever so much easier,” said Mrs. Lane, smiling at their concerned faces. “How wise it is to take a doctor when one goes for hair-raising trips!”
“I wish we’d taken an ambulance as well!” said her husband drily. “But we’ll get help somewhere. Now, let’s have a look at the car, Barry. You might have washed your face when you were at the creek!”
“Hadn’t time,” said Barry, with a grin. He was poking round the car, pulling away the undergrowth into which it had settled. “I say, Father, she hasn’t come off too badly, I believe!”
“No, I think not—thanks to that providential tree. We should all have been mince-meat, but for it. One wheel is hopeless, of course, and the petrol-tank is badly bashed—but I don’t think there’s much wrong with the engine. Stout old car, and no mistake. But getting her up will be no end of a job.”